Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/71

SKETCH. Lei of both sexes were taken from the gaols, put on board the hulks, and shipped in the transports to the American colonies, with as much official supervision as letters and newspapers were sent through the post. The persons sent to the colonies were sup- posed to be fitted for the work to be done there ; the very Act of Parliament which authorised their transportation professed to enact it as a means of supplying the great demand for labour among the colonists. The men and women destined for Botany Bay were also supposed to be selected in the same manner; who could imagine that it would be otherwise ? If any doubt had been expressed on the matter, it would have been set at rest by pointing to the success of the American system. In the face of that experience, it is not surprising if Phillip, like every one else, assumed that the people placed on board his ships belonged to the proper class for such a service. Brought into contact with this system as he was for the first time in his life, he did not see — it was hardly possible that he should have seen — a broad distinction between the method of dealing with convicts in the American colonies, and that which was about to be established under his government. Every con- vict transported across the Atlantic had been sold on arrival to the highest bidder for the term of his sentence ; and as prices were regulated by values in the market, the people put up for sale were usually worth buying. That was a substantial check on the exportation of worthless material ; but there was no check of any kind when the stream was diverted to the South Pacific ; and the result was that no attempt was made to select men and women of the kind recommended by Bacon — '^gardeners, plough- men, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers.*' My lord Sydney never gave the matter a thought ; neither did his Under Secretary. The selection was left in the hands of the gaolers, who picked out the men and women they wished to get rid of. So that when Phillip came to know something of them, he had to tell Sydney that more than fifty among them were disabled by old age and disease before they left England ; while very few of the rest were of any use to him — (p. 297) . That there was less Digitized by Google